Only nomads and explorers know: the world cannot be explained with rigid boundaries. The space of life is never constant. Life is not built with fences.

Anthony Salim prefers batik shirts to any other kind of shirt. "I wear batik because I like wearing batik. Some people like to wear Gucci because they want to be seen in it. It's their choice...For me, I wear batik for comfort."

When the earth's destruction is speeding up, when extreme drought and heat are killing the forests and melting the icecaps and the sea can no longer hold the overflow and cities are drowning, when one day this happens, what will humankind do? "Rage, rage against the dying of the light," as the line in Dylan Thomas's poem says.

Religion, race, hatred: elements that easily fuse. In Shakespeare's famous play The Merchant of Venice, they combine and we witness a 'comedy' that cannot make us laugh.

His name is Sekarpandan. He is short, with a huge behind. In Cirebon style wayang kulit, he is one of the nine clown-retainers who accompany the five Pandawa.

One day in 1968 I visited Lempad, the genius artist, at his home in Ubud. He met me standing among the stone statues he had arranged haphazardly on the veranda. He was already around 100 years old then. Bare-chested, his wrinkled skin was clear to see. On his almost-bald head were tufts of thin white hair.